Glaucoma-weather Link?

SCIENCE AND MEDICINE - SCOPE

October 13, 1991

Lenses in the eyes of Nigerian newborn pigs are dramatically thicker when the animals are born in the dry season, compared with those of pigs born in the wet season. Lens density is a predisposing factor for at least one type of glaucoma in humans. British scientists trying to determine if season of birth could be a predisposing factor to the degenerative eye disease tested 701 people hospitalized at a London eye hospital. Diagnosis, date of birth, ethnic group and gender all were taken into account. In a recent issue of the British medical journal The Lancet, researchers reported that people born during sunny months were more likely to develop glaucoma. The study also showed that people from the Caribbean had the most striking cases. Although the study will have to be duplicated to bear out the seasonal link, scientists said it is ''noteworthy that a typically age-related condition seems to be associated with events very early in life.''